Tag Archives: gardening

In my last post I wrote about the importance of passions to happiness or contentment. One of mine which is incredibly satisfying is gardening; that is, making nature beautiful (or more beautiful if you will). I love both the working part and the enjoying part. Creating a gorgeous garden is like creating art and in the end there’s something to look at, just as with a painting or sculpture. It has a calming effect and delights me. Even a small yard can have many charms.

In the fall a large nearby tree came down (it was pretty much dead) and its absence gave me more sun which means brighter flowers and even a crack at vegetable growing (veggies need a lot of sunlight). I think the 2017 yard is the most beautiful it’s been. When I look out I am sometimes taken aback by it. I took these photos on the last day of July.

MUST have a screen against mosquitoes

On the right, a fabric shower curtain to block a not great view

Lydia, the one-armed watering girl

BASIL!! My favorite

The coloring on this moth is fantastic

This is a prize. It’s a dipladenia (an annual flower that’s supposed to die) I bought in summer 2016, wintered inside and brought back out and BAM! Gorgeous again.

Silver Arrow grass plant, a garden star

The grass plant kept getting bigger so I dug/wrestled a piece out and potted it

The first summer I blogged I posted a photo of this Green/white grass plant. There wouldn’t be any reason to revisit it except that particular post has had somewhat regular views over the last two years. I was confused at first; why would people care about that post? It must come up in searches and that brings people to the blog.

I’ve felt a little guilty about that, thinking if those readers were looking for useful information, they sure weren’t finding any in my post. Granted, it wasn’ t meant to be an informational post full of big Latin words and discussions of soil conditions, but yeesh, I didn’t even say what it was. I’m here to correct that. It’s a Silver Arrrow Grass plant. Grows 5-6′, needs full sun, and gets tall reddish blooms in late summer (which I always forget till I see them).

Here’s also a current photo of this gorgeous plant. Well, two photos. One for “context” and one a little closer. What you won’t see in the photo is dental floss but it’s there. About this time of year the whole plant starts flopping over, perhaps because it doesn’t get as much sun as it wants – I really don’t know – so I use my go-to garden helper, dental floss, wrapping it around the perimeter once and knotting tightly. (You want to knot it tightly so birds don’t carry the floss away for nest-building. Also I was chastized last year by someone online saying that wildlife could choke on it basically. That sounded far-fetched to me, but I dutifully mention it in case it’s true.)

I love that this beauty basically takes care of itself. No fertilizing, no regularly trimming, just cutting it down in the late Fall when it browns. I remain forever impressed that a giant plant like this can just “disappear” over winter and return again every summer, starting from scratch. It’s like a magic bean!